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Thursday, December 11, 2008

Malaysia Home Minister interviewed by Malaysia Today

Malaysia Today (MT) interviews Malaysia's Home Minister (YB) Syed Hamid Albar. The minister's manner in handling national issue is an utter disappointment. See this extract where he justifies the non-existing Social Contract and corruption:

MT: If you say so YB. Okay, can we now talk about the Umno party elections and the numerous complaints about corruption in the party?

YB: What corruption are you talking about? There is no corruption in Umno.

MT: But the mainstream media has been reporting the many complaints of money politics.

YB: That is money politics, not corruption.

MT: Is there a difference?

YB: Of course there is. Corruption is when you pay to get something. Money politics is not corruption.

MT: What would you call money politics then?

YB: Money politics is……..well, money politics.

MT: And that is not corruption?

YB: Of course not.

On the invisible Social Contract:

YB: That was the agreement when we gained Merdeka in 1957. How can we go back on what was agreed?

MT: What agreement?

YB: The Social Contract that was agreed by the Malays, Chinese and Indians.

MT: Many say that the Social Contract does not exist. Have you ever seen it? Can Malaysians see a copy?

YB: It was not a written contract. It was a verbal contract.

What is this? Arguing constitution of a nation in 21st century without evidents?!! Then anyone can say anything about the constitution. That reveals a lot on the letigimacy of the ruling party's jurisprudence.

OK, for argument's sake, let's assume that the agreement of the said Social Contract did took place, but then that opens up a bigger problem: How then can the ruling party simply amend the invisible contract?

MT: But has this not since been amended many times in breach of the original Social Contract?

YB: No! In what way has it changed? Everything still remains the same.

MT: The government imposes new rules such as companies must be 100% Bumiputera before they can get import permits or APs and 30% of houses built must be sold to Bumiputeras according to the land area and so on. This was not part of the so-called Social Contract agreed by Umno, MCA and MIC before Merdeka. They are new rules made up as we went along.

YB: True. But the non-Malays accepted them.

MT: How do you know they accepted them?

YB: Because they continued to vote for the government. If they did not agree then they would not have voted for the government.

MT: But they did not vote for the government. 49% of the Malays and more than 80% of the Chinese and Indians did not vote for the government in the last general election. This means they do not agree with the government policies.

YB: But we still won more than 60% of the Parliament seats.

MT: That is only because of Gerrymandering. Malay majority seats like Putrajaya, where the voters are 98% Malay, have only 5,000 voters while seats that are 80% or more non-Malay have 120,000 voters or more. That is why the government still won and not because the majority voted for it.

The Home Minister said that the agreement has not be amended, but when the journalist listed those amendments out, the Home Minister ignores what he had so confidently affirmed seconds ago.

First there is no evident of this agreement. Then the ruling government make amendments on this non-existing agreement yet deny they did it. When it has been shown the amendments, the government justifies that it is OK for them to do so because of this and that. Their justification itself betray the dishonesty of the government.

Reading this reaffirms my conviction that the present ruling party UMNO/BN is hopeless.